How to Make A 3D Composite with an iPhone, Panorama 360 and Cinema 4D

I’m really excited about this one. In this tutorial, I show you how to make a 3D composite with Cinema 4D and images taken with an iPhone! I used a popular iPhone app called 360 Panorama to capture a panoramic image that I then use to light a scene in Cinema 4D using Global Illumination. Even the background plate was taken with an iPhone camera!

It’s incredible that we can pull this kind of render off using images from our cell phone. I can’t wait to see what you guys create with this one! Sure, images taken with a professional set up would look better and give cleaner results, but when it comes to learning about this stuff, there is no need to always wait for “pro” equipment. You have to use what you got! Enjoy!

A work around I tried was to make sure that the sky was turned on (both green dots), and then added another plane on the -x axis (the same size as your final output window and pushed back beyond the text) with the same properties as the disc you created.
I’m sure there’s a better way but that works for me at the moment!

Greetings from Germany! First of all, i want to thank you for sharing your knowledge with others. I’ve been learning a lot and having so much fun since i found your blog. All tutorials i had found before (especially german tutorials) were somehow boring and too technically. You show me the fun and cool way of learning. Thank you so much!

Hey, just done my first test with this technique and your HDRI rig and it worked great. There is one issue though that confused me. I standing where I want my 3d object to be and make my panarama. I then walk away from that spot and turn back and take a photo. When I use that photo as a back ground, and then inport the panarama into the hdri rig, it appears much bigger/closer than the photo background I’m trying to match. This makes the lining up process very hard and throws the reflections out completely. Is there a step I missed where you can size the HDRI rig itself?

i need a little helop. i love this tutorial because it has perfect mood and atmosphere. but when i follow your steps i am not getting back shadows on the compositing disc. i have done all the things the guys already said. but still nothing. any guess?

Hey Nick, great tutorial. Just a quick one I’m really struggling when I try and make my objects glass with this setup – is there anything special I need to consider? I’m getting very blurred and dark glass.

By the way, nice tutorial nick!
Maybe think about another tutorial using scenespector ‘cinecat’/’voocat’ or ‘icarus’ for 3D video tracking and composing stuff into a video captured with the iphone. Might be really interesting.
Cheers
D

Hey Nick!.. Just wondering if you could help me! I’ve done some footage but I didn’t use the app for a Panorama 360, Is there a way I could get this result without using it – cheating even more – I doubt it’s possible, but your the man!!

Hey Nick (if you still read these comments) and everybody else. I made a minute-and-a-half video with character animation and lighting i learned from this tutorial. It’s my response to Nicks challenge to do this with animation.http://www.vimeo.com/27068002

So I’ve been watching your videos for what seems like forever now and I was wondering, why don’t you ever sync the audio to the video? There is a simple way to do this: Just turn on your camera and turn on your mic, have them both recording then clap.
When editing put the 2 clap noises from the video and you mic together and its synced.

I’ve been following the GSG tutorials for a while now but this is my first comment.

I gave this one a go but since i dont have an iPhone.. i decided to take a different approach and took a series of screenshots in crysis (the computer game) and used photomerge in photoshop to assemble them, it actually turned it pretty good..

The only issue i noticed with this cheat.. is that when you place your plane down to get the shadows.. your word or whatever it is you are rendering.. actually reflects this plane and you see a clear line across the face of your letters where the plane ends, the only real way for this to be avoided is if you shoot the image for your background from either almost directly above or from ground level.. or having a matt object of course.

anyway, love your tutorials, good luck to anyone else attempting this one and good night to everybody from new zealand 🙂

a hint for people attempting this in the future.. instead of using a sky sphere… you can actually more easily project the panorama onto the inside of a tube object, just make sure it has a wide open inside and make it tall so you dont reflect what would be above the tube.. or add an extra image of a sky and of the floor for a better render.. though it takes more time

Hey Nick, thank you sooo much for all you teached and teach me.
As always, very good content, really clearly explained and the funny way. Love it.
In photoshop, instead of creating a new layer, selecting all and doing the copy paste thing, you can just press “cmd+option+shift+E” to combine visible into a new layer.
Hope this trick can be helpful and speed up a bit your workflow.
Keep up the good work.

Hello, I doubt that you took a video about my class? do the tutorial in how far you will hdri.c4d plugin to insert the image in my c4d, do not have this plugin, where to purchase this plugin. Thanks waiting for reply.

This is very cool. Thank you. You challenged to do this with video. Could you please show us how we could do something like this in a video with say, a person or any moving object from the video (ie: cars) moving in front of the 3D object in the scene? All while still having interaction and reaction on the 3D object (ie: reflection, shadows, etc.) Would that involve rotoscoping or is there an easier way? I think we would all be grateful for a tutorial on that. Thanks in advance.

what a great tutorial from d’master -gorilla,..i’m stuck when GI effects make the text becomes dark..>o<..it's take a long time to search the solution,..when trys wimp's solution it's work..thanks Wimp ^ ^..

Hi nick,
I really likes your all tutorials. I have a problem in this tutorial, when i open the background image its open upside down and down side up, or down side left or right. How i rotate it or make it straighten?
Thank you